Neelam Keshwala, 15, Luton

Neelam's room is tidy and controlled. The neatness is impressive considering she shares it with her cousin Rupal, who moved in when she started university in London. "I used to share my room with my older sister Neehal, which was really good fun. We would paint our nails and do makeovers together. And we would tell stories until 1am, even though I had school the next day."

When she is alone in the room she does her homework or writes in her diary. She also likes to sing along to Florence and the Machine.

There is little on the walls; a small textile hanging and a tiny picture of the Hindu god Krishna. Her mother is not keen on her sticking up too many pictures. But if she had her way, the room would be painted lime green, with one wall papered and a huge wooden statue of the elephant-headed god Ganesh in one corner, and it would also have a balcony.

For now she makes do with a silky bedspread and sticking up two strips of photographs, of family holidays in India and Switzerland, and of her little nephews and nieces who are her favourite visitors to her room. "I like my room best when they are in it. It gets messy, but I don't care."

Homa Khaleeli

Charlie Macphee, 14, Renfrew

Charlie Macphee in his bedroom. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

Charlie has lived in the same house all his life. A burst pipe three years ago allowed him to redecorate his bedroom in his favourite colours: green and blue.

Charlie plays football for Celtic's Community Academy and admits his room is something of a shrine to the Glasgow team. There is a signed Celtic shirt, framed and mounted on one wall; a Celtic bedspread on the lower bunk of his bed, and a signed photo of his favourite Celtic legend, Henrik Larsson. A small table holds the football trophies and medals he has collected over the years. Team photos of him and his friends are hung by the door.

"They are my favourite team but I didn't want to have a big Celtic room," says Charlie. "I didn't want my friends to feel uncomfortable if they came in the room.

"When I come back from school, I run upstairs, and play the Xbox. My room's got everything I like in it. It's like my own wee home."

He likes to keep it tidy. Clothes are hung neatly in the wardrobe, and his Harry Potter books are stacked on a bookshelf in the corner. On the top shelf sits one of his most prized possessions – an assortment of lions and tigers; plush and plastic. "I've had the animals since I was wee." If there was a fire, it would be the animals and the Xbox he'd save. When he leaves home, he wants his room to stay exactly as it is. "It's got everything from my childhood, everything that's important."

Kirsty Scott

Hefin Llewellyn-Evans, 16, Wilts

Hefin Llewellyn-Evans in his bedroom. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

"Normally I come up here, shut the door and talk to my friends on the computer," says Hefin. "It's not a place for work – I study downstairs. It's somewhere to get away to."

Hefin's room is dominated by an old table football game he is fixing. It is a neat, organised room. Its most striking features are a Welsh flag on a wall and a Welsh dragon on his bed. "I was born in England and live in England." But both his parents are Welsh. "And I am Welsh too," he says. "It makes me different."

"Mission control", as his mother Bronwen calls it, is an old desk of his father's. There are three screens on it – a laptop sits in the middle with a computer monitor on one side and a TV on the other. A copy of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is on the bedside table. "But I haven't read it yet." He plans to go to university and perhaps get a job as an engineer.

The walls are largely bare. Over his sofa are two Ordnance Survey maps, one showing the route of a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, another a course in the countryside around his home. "I don't do much sport but I like running." His most treasured possessions? "My laptop and my phone."